


In Search of Magic

by Quiddity



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Werewolves, it's gonna be a little bit of anything, more tags to come, there's a single werewolf in here for one chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: Astor, scholar for the Kingdom of Ozryn is assigned on a year long mission to discover and document magical anomolies. This would be easy if he didn't have to bring along Oskar, follower of the God of War, as a bodyguard. The guy seriously stresses him out.Short stories spanning a year on the road.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2





	1. First Day on the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Idk. I've recently been having a lot of fun playing with these two and it's all I wanna do anymore. If you're reading this original work on a fanfiction site, thanks! I hope you like it. I also have a lot of fanfics on here too if you wanna check em out. 
> 
> I just want y'all to love these boys as much as I do.
> 
> This is likely to become nsfw at some point.
> 
> I have more detailed notes on these guys and worldbuilding in general lingering that I'm trying to slowly work into here in the most obvious way possible. My style isn't super subtle unfortunately.

“Wyvern.”

Astor drops to his hands and knees to peer at the small, gray cat scrunched up under a settee crowded with books, papers, broken quills, and the general mess of a favored study space. The cat readjusts on her toes, curling her tail around herself and yowling pitifully. They always said animals knew when change was coming. The heavy saddlebag he’d wrestled down the stairs earlier was probably a hint, and the fact that his apartment was more of a wreck than ever were probably pretty good hints. Astor ducks his head under the couch, crescent moon earring tickling his cheeks, and the cat meows again.

“Yes, I appreciate that change is terribly upsetting, but you must come with me to the castle. I promise it’s a short trip.” He reaches and, with a twinge of guilt, he grabs the reluctant cat by the scruff. Though she grumbles, Wyvern goes limp and more or less allows Astor to deposit her into a small wire cage padded with an old fluffy throw pillow. She shakes herself as Astor latches the cage shut. “Casimir said he would take very good care of you. Don’t you trust him?” Astor asks. He picks himself up with a sigh and gently takes up the cage. “I promise the castle is nice, and that I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

Getting out of the apartment and locking it behind himself is rather difficult when he’s holding a cat that insists on constantly readjusting itself and protesting the situation. But he finally manages, tucking the key, looped with twine around his neck, back into his vest and makes his way down the stairs where his horse waits for him. He considers lashing the cat to the saddle, but almost instantly changes his mind. Too many images of a spooked horse bolting, jostling a poor cat to death without Astor being able to do anything about it. He’ll just carry Wyvern and lead the horse by hand. It’s not a trip made any easier by riding anyways; his apartment is within view of Pheasance Castle.

Fifteen minutes later, Astor is puffing lightly as he makes his way past the guards with a familiar nod and heads into the courtyard. The horse noses curiously at his black ponytail as he hands off the reigns to a waiting stablehand and tells him he’ll be back shortly. He’s just dropping off a sulking cat with a friend.

Up the stairs, pause to let a couple ladies in frilly silk dresses coo over Wyvern. Up more stairs, drop by the libraries to say goodbye to the other scholars. Suffer through a few hugs. Up yet _more_ stairs and pretend that he isn’t struggling by the time he’s making his way into the prince’s suite. Eight pounds of cat gets awfully heavy to a man not used to physical work. Prince Casimir all but throws the door to the adjoining bedroom open and throws his arms wide. Astor barely has time to set the cat down before Casimir engulfs him in a hug.

“Dear, I don’t want you to leave,” he says, kissing Astor on the cheek. “A year! That’s far too long for me.” Double checking he’s closed the door to the hall behind him, Astor kneels and opens the cage. The cat remains where she is, sniffing hard at Casimir’s pants leg through the grate.

“Honestly you make it sound like I’m being exiled. I wouldn’t be paid so well if I were, right? And I’d know he’s displeased with me?” Astor jokes. He brushes his fingers through his hair, untangling it and wrinkling his nose as a damp spot from the horse’s bored snuffling. “And yes, a year, or however long it takes me to figure out what’s causing these magical anomalies.”

“I’m not sure I believe in the stories myself. Magic without runes just sounds ridiculous. A villager can’t blow up the town well with a mere thought. Perhaps with a book, or a weapon, or… ugh. They must have a tattoo somewhere, at the very least. It’s preposterous otherwise.”

“You think so?” Astor asks. He gingerly settles into a chair. Casimir joins him and, after a moment, Wyvern creeps out towards them. “I find the idea rather exciting.”

“You _do_?”

“Mn, well, the mystery of it at least. Gods’ only know what sort of choas the world would experience if any of this is true.” He sits up and Wyvern settles into his lap, padding until she can find a place to curl her feet beneath herself. “I don’t believe it either, for the record. It would just be interesting, if true.”

“Worried some passerby will rip the foundations out from under your apartment building?”

“Do not even put the thought into my head!” Astor gasps, paling as he curls his fingers into his cat’s silky fur. To not even be able to trust the intricate, but concrete rules of magic anymore. It’d be like handing the keys of destruction to a random passerby and just _trusting_ them to know what not to do with them. No. He couldn’t do it. The stress would drive him mad. Eager to change the subject before his mind goes too far down that particular road, Astor turns his attention on Wyvern. “Thank you for watching her while I’m gone,” he says. Casimir holds out his hand and Wyvern eventually nudges him.

“So long as she pulls he weight in the kitchens,” he says. Astor chuckles, pulls his key out and over his head and hands it over.

“And you’ll have someone check on the apartment every week?” Casimir nods and stands in a single, graceful motion, making his way to his desk and depositing the key safely in a drawer.

“I have it in my personal schedule. Hey,” he says, leaning onto the desk and smiling in a way that makes Astor’s stomach twist with nerves. “I have a vital favor for you to do before you leave. Stop by the Temple of Zurtaran and pick up a gift they owe you.”

“Oh hush. Don’t frighten me. What kind of gift would the God of War have for me?” Astor says. He’s already dreading the trip. He loved his own favored Goddess, Di, and made temple visits often, and even went with Casimir often to pray to his Wear. But he avoided Zurtaran for a reason. Those types were a bit… intense.

“I know you like to fuss over nonsense. So I thought to keep you safe on the road _and_ focused on your work, I’ve hired you a bodyguard for your trip. Go and ask for Mother Nadine.”

Zurtaran’s temple is a great white stone building, decorated with red banners marked with Zurtaran’s skeletal fist, near the entrance of the city. It serves as both a defensive structure and a secondary guardhouse. Astor hitches his horse to a post and takes a deep breath. He hadn’t been to this temple since he was a child brought by his parents making sure he had exposure to all the eight gods. Zurtaran was popular among guards, soldiers and mercenaries. Pretty much the kind of people who made a living off the sort of violence and confrontation he tried his best to avoid.

“Come on then,” Astor says to himself, making his way up the steep marble stairs. Just a few minutes in here. Then the next _year_ with whatever beast Casimir had hired for him.

No, that wasn’t fair, Astor chides himself even as he entered the temple and found himself in a broad open courtyard crowded with sparring pairs. Zurtaran’s followers also famously valued loyalty and honor. It was just hard for him to remember that when faced with so much shouting and flashing, dulled metal.

Deciding to avoid that throng of action, Astor skirts around in the covered hallways around the edges of the courtyard. As he rounds the corner he spots a large blond man, with a full, well groomed beard sitting on a bench and watching the others. He’s dressed for something certainly more intense than sparring. He’s wearing light, silver armor, with a nasty looking axe, etched with runes, strapped to his hip. Heart beating anxiously, Astor has just about made his way past when the man turns and locks eyes with him. Astor stutter steps, gives him a small shy, don’t-mind-me, smile and tries to make his way past the man without disturbing him.

He stands, half a head taller than the next largest man in the courtyard, and begins to follow him.

What does he do? The obvious would be to just be _okay_ , turn around and admit he has no idea where he’s going. But what if he’s already suspicious? What if if the man intended to yell at him for trespassing? Was he allowed here? _Was_ he trespassing? Astor couldn’t take it. Not from such an intimidating person.

“You’re looking for Mother Nadine?” is what he asks instead. His voice isn’t as deep and booming as Astor would have expected, but it carried in a way that felt this man didn’t have to try very hard to make himself heard. Astor turns, trying not to hide in his riding cloak.

“Ah, y-yes,” he says, licking his lips. “Sorry, I should have asked.” The man grunts in a way that says he probably should have, but doesn’t particularly care.

“Come on, she’s this way.” The man leads Astor down a nearby hallway and up a short flight of steps into a large, but sparsely decorated office. Mother Nadine’s tunic is blindingly white against her dark skin. Her hair is pulled back in a tight braid and for a moment, she doesn’t look up from her paperwork. And when she does, she hardly seems surprised that Astor, who feels so wholly out of place, is here to see her.

“I take it you’re Astor, then?” she asks. No greeting, just a setting down of her quill, a glance at the man lurking in the doorway over his shoulder.

“Yes, Mother,” Astor says, bowing. “Prince Casimir sent me to speak to you.”

“Well? Oskar? Are you packed?”

No.

Oh no.

“I am,” the biggest, most intimidating man Astor has seen in this temple, says behind him. Astor glances back. Oskar merely lifts a mildly curious brow. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you later, Nadine.”

“As much as I’m loathe to part with him, the prince insisted on the best. So there he is,” Mother Nadine says. Between the two of them, the entire situation feels as mundane as picking up the laundry. Nothing like a temple leader bidding one of her own goodbye for a year. Who were these people?

Astor can feel the color draining from his face as he turns and bows to Oskar as well. Gods, he fills the entire doorway. Casimir said he was supposed to settle his nerves, not run them through the roof! “Thank you for looking after me, Oskar.” Oskar gives a tiny bow in return, but turns into the hallway without much emotion.

“I’ll meet you out front.”

Once Astor leads them out of the city, Oskar is the one who sets the pace. He rides half a horse ahead of him and for the most part Astor is fine with this. Despite not talking through their plans, Oskar is headed in the right direction. The only problem is that Oskar doesn’t seem interested in talking about anything at all. Normally Astor, famously introverted, would be perfectly fine with such a disinterested partner. But as the hours while away, the more Astor burns with curiosity about his new bodyguard. Before long, he can’t keep his questions to himself.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Astor asks, nudging his horse to be even with Oskar’s.

“Would Nadine have called me the best if I hadn’t?” Astor slows again in surprise, then nudges his horse again to catch up. How rude! This was a simple yes or no question, he didn’t need this you’re-stupid act. Oskar glances to him, a little grin twitching his beard as if he thinks it’s funny. “Yeah. But not for this long though.” Was this how he joked then? Astor wonders.

“Well, hopefully this won’t be for the full year. It depends on what I find out about- How much do you know about this trip?” He asks. Oskar shrugs.

“You’re going to the village of Henleigh first. Something about an angry woman and a well. Which- I don’t believe. I’m not an expert but, no way. After that you’ve got a short list you’ll go off from there,” Oskar says easily.

“You’re well informed. What else did Mother Nadine tell you?”

“Prince Casimir himself, actually. He said you’re a high strung little thing that’s more like to fuss over anything else he can think of than actually focus on his work. I’m somehow supposed to help you focus.”

“That’s patently untrue!” Astor exclaims, sitting up straight in his saddle. High strung, he’ll give him, but “To imply that I can’t do my work without help is going too far!” Oskar doesn’t look like he believes him.

“You looked like you were going to pass out just talking to me back at the temple, how am I supposed to expect you to do anything on your own on the road? And what does Prince Casimir expect _me_ to do with you?”

“Nothing,” Astor says quickly. His cheeks are hot with anger and embarrassment. The nerve!Prince Casimir had made him out to be a coward, and now his only companion for the next year was judging him for it. “You don’t have to do anything for me. Despite how cowardly Casimir thinks I am, apparently, I’m perfectly capable of caring for myself.”

“Oh you are?” Oskar challenges.

“Absolutely.”

“From highwaymen, crooked merchants, wolves, monsters… there’s slavers everywhere...” Every entry on the list ratchets up Astor’s imagination more and more, until his skin crawls and he grips the reigns tight in his hands.

“O-of course!” he huffs.

“No you can’t,” Oskar spits suddenly. His eyes shifting slightly to the side, glaring at something over Astor’s shoulder. “It’s obvious just looking at you, and you’re a damned spoiled idiot for saying you can.”

“Excuse me? I’m a grown man. I don’t need you-” Astor gasps.

“You heard me. And I promise, it’s better that you realize that now than before you’re bleeding out in a ditch somewhere,” Oskar says, spurring his horse on ahead. Astor lingers behind, worrying at his lip and wondering if he’s just been threatened.

The last couple hours of their day is quiet; Astor can’t quite bring himself to start up conversation again after the last one ended so poorly. And it’s hard for him to tell if Oskar is still angry. An inn marks the halfway point to Henleigh and Oskar agrees to stop for the night by steering his horse into the stable. Astor makes a point to wait behind, letting Oskar dismount and grab his bag before he enters and does the same. Oskar passes him as he’s tipping the stableboy. There’s something in his gaze, something hard and aggressive that sends a shiver down Astor’s spine because he doesn’t know what it means. Was he still angry about their argument earlier? Well, he can’t leave it like that. Whatever Oskar is upset about, he’ll ask him about it.

He steps out of the stable, turns towards the inn, and something grabs him between the shoulders. The next moment the rough wood of the stable is digging into his cheek. He tries to pull off, and the hand shifts to grab a fistful of his hair instead, keeping his head tight against the wall. He gasps, shocked, and grabs behind him instead, feeling beard, hot breath.

“Oskar!” he tries to call out, but it’s too quiet and rasping, too scared. The man behind him leans in, lets Astor swing down and thump him in the chest. He just ineffectively meets a cuirass anyways.

“Those are very nice and expensive looking earrings. I’ll be taking them.” a low voice growls in his ear. Astor’s blood runs cold. Not in fear, but pure unadulterated rage.

“ _Oskar-_ ” he snaps. Oskar straightens up and shakes his fingers loose from Astor’s hair. He turns, shoving his back into the wall, chest fluttering.

“You still think you don’t need me?” Oskar says.

Snarling, Astor punches him in the mouth. Oskar tries to flinch away, but he wasn’t expecting it, and can’t fully dodge the glancing blow Astor lands to his face. He huffs, rubs his mouth, and Astor is disappointed to find his hand comes away clean.

“Of course I do _now,_ you brute! I’m too good for _you_!” Astor snaps. “Don’t bother with much tonight, because you’re going back to Pheasance tomorrow. And if you _ever_ touch me again, I’ll personally send the Prince after you.”

“What a very aristocratic threat…” Oskar sighs, but Astor can see it. He’s cowed. It’s in the way he shrinks a little, turns away from Astor and, most importantly, takes up his bag for him and go ahead towards the inn while Astor lingers behind, struggling to catch his breath. The satisfaction of seeing him walk away is overtaken by the water gathering in his eyes.

How _dare_ he?! Who did Oskar think he was handling him like that? For wearing his earrings? He was completely out of his mind if he thought this would convince him to take them out. If he was so concerned about bandits, or thieves, or whatever else he thought was lurking around on the road, then he would just have to protect Astor from them _while_ he wore them for all to see. No matter Oskar’s opinion would change how much he needed them.

As calm as he’s going to get, Astor makes his way into the inn and towards the bar. A quick glance finds Oskar lurking at a table in the corner, sipping at a tall ale.

“May I have two rooms?” Astor asks. The innkeeper shakes his head.

“Sorry, love. I’ve got one left for tonight. Two beds though,” he says with an apologetic shrug. He keeps his coin pouch carefully out of sight under his cloak, even when the innkeeper tells him the price. He’s all too aware of Oskar watching him as he pays with too much care.

“The big man in the corner is sharing with me. And he’s paying for his own drinks,” Astor says. He takes the key and picks his way through the tavern to Oskar’s table. Oskar quickly puts down his tankard, shifts in his chair in anticipation as Astor draws near.

“Astor-”

“ _No._ Upstairs on the left. And leave me alone for awhile, I’m going to bathe,” Astor says, plucking up his bag and turning with hardly a glance.

The instant Astor locks the door behind him, his throat goes dangerously tight. He’d often fretted about being beaten, robbed, taken advantage of, but it had always been a nervous fantasy. He tries to swallow around the knot in his throat, and struggles. He hadn’t expected to be manhandled on the first day, much less by his own bodyguard.

Astor bites his lip and pulls the tie from his hair. Oskar had made it painfully clear, he thinks as he works the tangles out with his fingers, that he could do whatever he wanted with him. The difference in size, strength and training was just too great. A single hand was all it had taken to render Astor completely helpless and that thought was _terrifying_.

Astor double checks that the door is closed and locked before he drops his cloak on the bed and unbuttons his shirt, making his way to the bowl and pitcher near the window. He takes one of the cloths on the table, wets it, and sets it to his face. He hisses and jerks it away again when his cheek burns. The cloth is stained with a streak of blood. Astor wipes his cheek and a bright red smear marks his thumb. Oskar had cut him on the stable wall.

Astor presses the cloth to his mouth and masks his sobs behind it.

Oskar doesn’t come to the room until after nightfall, long after Astor has gone to bed, his back pressed tight to the wall. Astor watches him through slit eyes, feigning sleep as Oskar undresses down to his breeches, revealing a broad, fuzzy chest and strong arms. There’s a choker around his neck, marked dimly in the moonlight with runes that Astor can’t read through the dim light and his apparent lack of consciousness. He climbs into bed with a heavy sigh and Astor thinks that that’s it. That they’ll both go to sleep and that Oskar will leave in the morning and Astor will be left alone to work in peace. Unprotected, but alone.

He didn’t need a bodyguard…

“Astor,” Oskar starts. Astor lays there, watching his chest rise and fall for a long moment as he ponders if he should bother with this right now. But he eventually shifts, gives up on his sleep.

“What,” he snaps quietly.

“I’m sorry.” Astor curls in on himself, his cheek itching against the pillow.

“You scratched me,” he says simply. As if that’s the biggest of his issues. Not the fact that Oskar shoved him into the wall in the first place.

“I know, and for a stupid fucking reason too,” Oskar sighs. His brow wrinkles, a frown pulling at his beard. “I guess I thought I was making a point. The prince said you hadn’t traveled much. You were dressed so nicely. And it was- it was the earrings. They’re really nice and flashy, and you were wearing them so easily that it made me think…”

“That I would be a pain to look after?” Astor finishes for him. Oskar shrugs.

“That you didn’t know what you were getting into. Or that you had no idea what kind of target you were making yourself,” Oskar says. He rolls onto his side and looks Astor in the eye. “I mean it. I’m sorry. To be honest I still think it’s true but that doesn’t mean I had to shove you around.” Oskar makes a soft, huffing chuckle. “I should have at least tried a little harder to tell you first before deciding you weren’t going to listen.” And Astor knows that’s he right too. He had only thought of dressing for his visit to the castle that morning, of his earrings’ use to him, and never of what kind of easy hit he appeared to any passerby with less than kind intentions.

“No, you were right, I wasn’t listening,” Astor admits. He sits up, pulling his shirt tight around himself as he does. “I could tell you were upset about something, but was I being too ignorant to realize what. Otherwise I would not have been so surprised you felt you had to make a more solid point.” Oskar relaxes a bit, but Astor grips his spare pillow and flings it at him, hitting him in the face. “That doesn’t mean you’re forgiven, by the way. You scared the hell out of me.”

“I don’t expect to be,” Oskar says, tucking the pillow behind himself. “If you stay in Henleigh for a couple days I’ll send a replacement after me-”

“You’re coming with me,” Astor says. He surprises himself with the statement, but in the instant he knows it’s what he wants. “I appreciate you apologizing and, though I don’t approve of your methods, you did show me one of my own weaknesses. But we have to set some ground rules.”

“Alright.”

“You _never_ touch me again,” Astor says, doing his best to growl it out and appear serious. “Unless I’m in imminent danger, you leave me alone. I’ll do my best to dress down, but the earrings stay on. Casimir gave them to me for this job. They’re etched to help me sense lies and magic. If you think they’ll go missing then, well, that’s your job.”

“That’s fair,” Oskar says. “I won’t touch you, but I’ll let you know when I don’t think you’re behaving, or taking my advice.”

“And I’ll do my best to listen,” Astor says.

“Good. Then go to bed. It’s best to leave early and put some ground behind us.” Dutifully, Astor lays back down and pulls the blanket up to his ears.


	2. The Shrine of the Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The people who know me is doing a very long groan rn seeing that I'm Still Writing Werewolves.

The moon is astoundingly bright tonight. It hangs round and white and massive above the trees as they pick their way through the underbrush. Astor feels that they should have stopped at sunset, and had made such clearly known. And yet here they are, more than an hour later and Astor is still trailing dutifully along behind Oskar’s gleaming silver cuirass.

“Did you not get tired trekking about all day?” He asks. He’s since moved on from demands, from asking sweetly onto his current tactic, baiting for a fight.

“No,” Oskar bites back, exactly how Astor knew he would. “because I had plenty of time to catch as second wind while you were killing daylight with a river bath. The suggestion of Oskar’s blond head twists back to glare at him. Astor should just stop and make camp himself. Damned if Oskar joins him or no. His thighs are burning with every step, they’re miles from the nearest town, and Oskar _should_ stop with him. He had to, he was his bodyguard after all.

“And I’m suffering following behind a man who declined that same bath,” Astor huffs. Not that they don’t both reek after any amount of time in the wilderness. But it was odd that Oskar had passed on something he would normally help himself too, and he’d been huffy ever since.

“Because this is a bad place to stop,” Oskar clarifies suddenly. “We can on the other side of these woods.”

“That could be miles! How do you even know that,” Astor asks, snapping a twig under his boot. Oscar twitches anxiously. “Neither one of us has ever been here.”

“My collar’s itching me.”

That’s all Oskar has to say before Astor is picking up his pace to follow closely to Oskar’s back. Close enough to reach out and touch the shield hanging from Oskar’s shoulder. It was a side affect of the collar all of Zurtaran’s followers wore. It caused the wearer to itch or feel discomfort in the presence of dark magic.

“Get back a little, would you?” Astor does so only reluctantly, because Oskar is tense and alert and Astor can only guess at exactly why. Dangerous? Close? Coming closer? Just how dark was he talking about? He’d been on edge for a while now. Many thought that mages like Astor would willingly deal with dark magic. Some would dabble out of curiosity, but not him. Dark magic was something different, something inherently meant for destruction. Compared to dark magic, his own magic was harmless. He does his best to linger back a couple of steps, but his heart is in his throat, resisting any efforts to swallow around it.

Oskar would only ask him to step back if he were expecting--

Something hot and massive slams into him. He’s off his feet in an instant, his shoulder crunching into the brush as scorching, reeking breath washes over his face. Oskar’s name is barely out of his mouth before an axe flashes in the moonlight, cutting a bright arc through the night. An image flashes through Astor’s mind of the blade slamming into his throat even as the thing shoves a hand into his chest, claws raking through his vest and shirt like nothing as it releases a dog like yelp and launches off of him, Oskar following close behind with a feral curse and another glimmering swing.

Astor wants to lay there, to catch his breath and assess the damage. Is he bleeding badly? Is his shoulder dislocated? Is he in imminent threat of death? But he can’t afford any of that; Oskar is cursing out some snarling thing just over his head and he’s quite in the way at the moment. He rolls onto his side, wheezing and pawing for his spell book at the small of his back. Part of him is thankful it doesn’t feel damaged as he jerks open the satchel and pulls out his book as he stumbles to his feet. He steps back, again, and then quicker when the beast snarls and lifts itself to its full height. Astor gasps in the same moment his back hits a tree.

The deep gray fur, clawed hands, triangular ears, a snarling feral, mouth. A werewolf. Oskar is well over six feet tall but the werewolf towers over him as it swings a massive paw and catches Oskar’s shield in a shower of sparks, bright pinpricks lingering in Astor’s vision against the dark blanket of night. Blinking them away, Astor flips open his book. He has a scant second to contribute something useful. A battle was decided in moment, in a handful of motions that could leave either one dead.

His hand winds up on a fire spell.

Astor thinks briefly of the damp underbrush and how badly this may get out of hand, but his fingers are already playing over the familiar runes, the words already on his lips before he can think any deeper. Oskar glances at him over his his shoulders, takes the werewolf's next swipe in the ribs and rolls with the momentum just as fire gouts out of the empty space just in front of Astor. Heat billows forth, engulfing the werewolf. It ducks out quick as it can with a yelping snarl, trailing the scent of singed fur.

“Fucking hell-” Oskar barks, rolling to his feet, slinging dirt from his shining blade. Astor laughs, scared, and flips several pages, looking for something more blinding than burning. Or at least anything less likely to destroy everything around them.

Another clang. Oskar grunts softly in pain, but the werewolf yelps with the bright bite of the same. Astor, fingers already on a radiant spell when he sees Oskar jerk his blade from where it’s buried in the struggling werewolf’s side. Blood runs down the edge as all the fight drains out of the cursed creature. It slumps onto all fours, whines and dashes into the trees. Astor begins his spell to hopefully blind it and cut it off.

“Leave it-” Oskar interrupts him, as he wipes the blood off his blade on his pants and shoves it back into the loop at his hip. “He’s done. And for Gods’ sake! How many times do I have to tell you to warn me? The instant you hit me with one of those things your ass is on your own.” He snaps, and then, quieter as Astor comes up beside him and he sees the scratches raked across his ruined shirt; “Are you bleeding out?”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Astor huffs, feeling petulant in the moment after being scolded again.

“Come on then, we’ve got to find out where he went before we lose him,” Oskar says, pulling his lingering gaze away from Astor’s chest. He mutters a spell under his breath, tapping at his bracer so it glows with the magic etched into it. Just enough to illuminate wet splotches of blood in the grass. But Astor panics, and struggles to swallow it down.

“Why?” he pleads. Oskar billows out a deep exhale. “We should be getting out of here.”

“Don’t do this,” Oskar starts.

“It could have killed you! You wanted to leave so badly before, why don’t we now?” Astor asks. He’s lingering too close to Oskar again with his nerves, but while Oskar doesn’t rebuff him this time, he doesn’t acknowledge him either, simply pulls aside a branch and holds it for Astor to follow.

“That was before the werewolf.”

“That _was_ before the werewolf!” Astor whines, motioning to his ruined shirt, his slick and aching chest. “It’s certainly changed my mind on staying. Why did it have to change yours as well?”

“We _have_ to, okay? I know you hate it but it’s already hurt both of us and I don’t trust it not to come back now that we have to stop here tonight.” He gives Astor a cutting look. “I can’t leave you in here without seeing a corpse, and considering how badly you want to cling to me, I don’t think you would appreciate me leaving you behind,” Oskar says.

“I certainly would not.”

“Then we’re in agreement. Calm down.” Oskar huffs. As if it was that easy! Astor puffs a shaking breath but agrees that Oskar has a point. There’s little sense in leaving an injured and angry werewolf unaccounted for. As much as he hates it. He fingers the latch on his spell book and is silent for a couple minutes before he quietly asks. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Oskar mutters. “Just bruised. You got the worst of it.” He glances back again, his mouth twisting into a frown. “I know it’s gotta hurt like hell, but I’ll get to it when I can, okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Astor says, and finds himself flushing at the thought of Oskar’s large, rough hands on his chest.

There’s a whumphing sound ahead of them and Oskar pulls to a stop so fast Astor bumps into his back, smelling sweat, warm metal, and the faintest hint of blood.

“Stay here,” Oskar whispers. He turns, looks around, then leads Astor behind a thick clump of bushes. He hisses as leaves and thin branches brush his wounded chest but Oskar quickly shushes him.

“Keep your book out, but only attack if he sees you, okay? I’ll be right back.” Astor nods and Oskar turns, pulling his axe out of the loop at his hip with a single, fluid motion. He disappears into the brush and the forest goes quiet. Only the soft rustle of leaves in the wind, the crack of a branch and… a low, growling exhale. Astor sucks in a sharp breath and squints down at his book, stopping on the same radiant blinding spell he’d planned on before. The bush ahead of him shivers, Astor tenses, but a blond head appears, once again wiping a blood stained axe on his pants leg.

“Come on. You’re gonna want to see this,” Oscar says, helping Astor to his feet. He pushes his way through the brush to a tiny clearing smelling strongly of blood. A stark white tree towers in the center of the clearing, covered in dark, dark red leaves that appear almost black just outside of the glow of Oskar’s bracer. The trunk looks dry and gnarled, like bare driftwood, and the northside is a mess of tangled and mutated branches that, as Astor looks closer, appear as a snarling wolf’s head. Blood marks the rough surface under this ‘head’, trailing a dark path to the roots where the werewolf’s body lay slumped against the tree. His blood flows slowly from the slit throat and as Astor watches, a root _twitches_ toward the wound, the end of a tendril digging into flesh before his eyes.

Entranced, Astor kneels beside the body, watching as the blood soaks into the wood, creeping up and up the roots as if it were white cloth dipped in dye. The ends of the roots keep moving, working deeper into the throat of the werewolf, pulling it open just enough that Astor can see the slick insides. He reaches out, the smell of blood on his tongue so strong he can _taste_ it-

He’s jerked back by the collar, Oskar pulling him back several steps before he releases him. Astor comes to as if from a trance. He had been about to _touch_ it. Wanted to feel the blood on his lips and-

Bile rises in Astor’s throat as he watches and he stands, taking several more steps back. “What the hell is this?” he asks, giving the tree a wide berth as Oskar pulls him back towards the edge of the clearing.

“Whatever it is, this is what’s making me itch. It’s _evil_ , Astor. But, do you see any runes anywhere?”

“No, but… Let’s go. I’ll write down my notes away from this thing.”

They move on for more than a mile from the wolf tree before Oskar’s itching dies down enough that he can bear to stop for the night and make a fire, near a tiny stream.

“I have to write a letter to the temple in the next town we stop at. A team needs to tear that thing down, and they need warning not to fall for… whatever it tried to pull on us,” Oskar says, settling down next to Astor in the ring of light and warmth slung out by the fire. Astor is gingerly pulling his stiffened shirt away from his skin while Oskar tests the temperature of the water they had boiled. It’s takes him a while to get the thing off and by then one of the deeper scratches has started to sluggishly bleed again, a dark trail tickling down his belly.

“How come you’re the only one that bothered to learn any healing magic?” Oskar asks, digging through his bag. “I need my suture kit for that one, because you can’t do anything for yourself.”

“I’m willing to bet it’s because you can’t be bothered to study,” Astor cuts back, balling up his shirt and silently mourning the fact that he might as well throw it into the fire because it’s completely beyond repair. “You wanted to touch it too? At that tree?” He shudders , settles on dipping a clean corner of his ruined shirt into the warm water to pat at and try to clean himself up.

“Touch it? I wanted to drink the blood,” Oskar puffs. “That probably explains how the poor guy succumbed to lycanthropy in the first place.”

“He must have been there for awhile to sneak up on you,” Astor says. Oskar answers by pushing Astor back on his hands and pricking the tender flesh around the gash with his thin suture needle.

“Which one did he sneak up on again?” he asks. A few more stitches. Astor biting his lip and trying to stare into the fire instead of Oskar’s focused expression or his big, bloodstained fingers on his chest. “I had no idea he was there until he was jumping on you.”

“No? I thought you said you were itching.”

“You don’t understand. That tree was _unbearable._ I’m still feeling it from this far away, but at least I can stand it,” Oskar says. He leans down and Astor shivers at the hot puff of his breath on his chest as he bites the thread short. He licks his lips of blood and Astor closes his eyes on the image, easing himself onto his back. “I’m glad you didn’t want to stick around either. I don’t think I could have taken it.”

“I couldn’t stand it either,” Astor mutters after a long second to steady himself. “I’ve never been so creeped out by something in my life.”

“Because you’re sheltered.”

“I don’t make a living destroying evil, Oskar. Before I met you, I almost lived in the palace library.” Oskar chuckles, takes a drink of water and spits it into the fire.

“You’re okay,” for a moment Astor thinks he means ‘as a person’, but Oskar motions to his wounds. “Cover up with something clean and we’ll get someone to patch you up with some proper magic in the next town.”

“Then I can bathe?” Astor asks hopefully.

“Fuck yeah. We both can.”

**Author's Note:**

> *puts mouth on mic* I'm open to questions.


End file.
